XCOR Rocket Plane Soars into Record Book

MOJAVE, California - XCOR's EZ-Rocket flew into the history books today. The craft made a record-setting point-to-point flight, departing here from the Mojave California Spaceport, gliding to a touchdown at a neighboring airport in California City.

The rocket plane was piloted by Dick Rutan, no stranger to milestone-making voyages. In 1986, Rutan was co-pilot on the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, around-the-world flight without refueling.

The EZ-Rocket is a modified Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft. The vehicle is propelled by twin 400-pound thrust, regeneratively cooled rocket engines and fueled by isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen.

The EZ-Rocket is able to stop and restart its engines in mid-flight, as well as perform rocket-powered touch-and-goes on a runway.

Down and safe

With Rutan at the controls, the EZ-Rocket lifted off at 11:40 a.m. local time. The craft touched down at the California City airport - about 10 miles northeast of Mojave - some nine minutes later.

Stashed onboard the EZ-Rocket were four pouches of mail, a bill with a check attached, letters from around the world, and other items.

The point-to-point hop brings to a close the EZ-Rocket's flight program, with today's flight number 25, said Aleta Jackson, an executive for XCOR Aerospace, based here in Mojave, California.

"Today's flight is the culmination of the EZ-Rocket test series," Jackson told SPACE.com. Among projects on the books at XCOR Aerospace is designing and building the first generation of X-Racers for the newly-formed Rocket Racing League.

It was announced in early October that the X-Racers are based on the design of XCOR's EZ-Rocket. Next-generation vehicles will be using an airframe provided by Velocity of Sebastian, Florida.

Record setting flight

Officials from the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) were on-site to witness the event. The NAA keeps tabs on world and United States aviation and space records. Also on hand were representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space transportation office.

"This is a record-setting flight," Jackson said, in terms of distance and based on the rocket-powered airplane taking off from the ground, with the pilot controlling the rocket engine throughout the majority of the flight, and landing the craft.

"The other neat thing about this is that we're connecting Mojave Spaceport to California City," Jackson said. The California City airport may become an alternate landing spot if future rocket vehicles departing out of Mojave run into problems, she said.

History at Mojave

Maximum speed of the rocket plane was estimated at 200 mph, climbing upwards to some 8,500 feet.

"There was enough propellant onboard to go around California City in case somebody was on the wrong runway," said Dan DeLong, XCOR's chief engineer.

Among those witnessing the EZ-Rocket's liftoff was Stuart Witt, Mojave Spaceport Manager. This site was also the location of last year's historic suborbital treks of SpaceShipOne.